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Why Retail Will Survive AR, VR & Drones

Much has been written and many a hand has been wrung over e-commerce killing the corner store. No doubt it has hastened the downfall of retailers big and small, but many were already beset by bad management, real estate and/or business plans. Point is, online shopping has been around now for 20 years and still only claims about 10 percent of retail sales. And for every new technology like drone deliveries, personal shopping bots or VR showrooms that’s certain to doom brick-and-mortar, there’s ten others around the corner that could be its salvation (think self-driving cars and Amazon’s cashier-less convenience stores). And of course there’s always physical retail’s ace-in-the-hole: People like to shop.

“I recently published a piece at Economy.com showing that contrary to popular belief, brick and mortar retailers were actually doing fine.”